Jack Lang is targeted, with his daughter Caroline, by a preliminary investigation for “laundering of aggravated tax fraud” in connection with Jeffrey Epstein. This procedure was launched by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office against the former minister, who was also summoned on Sunday by the Quai d'Orsay. Jack Lang defended himself on Saturday against “unfounded” accusations.

Published on: 02/06/2026 - 1:15 p.m. Modified on: 02/07/2026 - 3:35 p.m.

The noose is tightening on Jack Lang and his daughter, Caroline, because of their alleged links to American financier and sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Pressed to resign from the presidency of the Arab World Institute (IMA) in Paris, Jack Lang, already summoned on Sunday February 8 by the Quai d'Orsay, is now also targeted, with his daughter Caroline, by an investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF).

“The accusations made against me are unfounded,” assured Jack Lang on Saturday in a press release sent to AFP. The former Minister of Culture said he welcomed the investigation opened on Friday “with serenity and even relief”. “It will shed light on accusations that undermine my integrity and my honor.”

Read alsoEpstein affair: Jack Lang summoned to the Quai d’Orsay on Sunday

On Friday, the government did not exclude any option regarding the mandate of the former socialist Minister of Culture. “He has been summoned by the Ministry” of Foreign Affairs, the main financier of the IMA, “and will be received on Sunday,” Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told AFP from Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he was traveling.

From Beirut where he continued his trip, Jean-Noël Barrot then said that his "priority is obviously to guarantee the proper functioning and continuity and integrity of the Arab World Institute", stressing that "the first elements which emerge from these files are unprecedented and extremely serious" and "require rigorous and in-depth investigative work".

“I reserve, regarding the continuation of his mandate, all options,” he added, while the annual subsidy from the ministry, 12.3 million euros, represents half of the IMA budget.

"All options"

Calls for his resignation have multiplied since the links between Jack Lang and Jeffrey Epstein were brought to light with the publication of millions of documents on January 30 by the American justice system.

Laurent Merlet, Jack Lang's lawyer, considered it "normal for the supervisory authority to ask for explanations from a person involved and not be satisfied with what they can read on social networks and in the media. It is a question of knowing their position". He refuted to AFP the idea that the Epstein documents prove “intense bonds of friendship” between the American sex criminal and his client.

On Wednesday, Jack Lang formally ruled out resigning, citing his “naivety” in the face of revelations about his past links with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019.

After declaring on Monday "fully assuming (his) past links" with the American financier, Jack Lang assured Wednesday that he knew nothing of this man's criminal past when he met him "around fifteen years" ago through the director Woody Allen.

Preliminary investigation of the PNF

No charges are brought against Jack Lang, but the mention of his name 673 times and his links of interest with the American financier have tarnished him, as well as his daughter Caroline.

The latter resigned on Monday as head of a film producers' union after revelations about an "offshore" company that she founded in 2016 with the American businessman.

“He was a friend, he was not a close friend. He was not at all in my close circle of friends,” she assured Thursday evening on BFMTV. “How could anyone imagine such horrors?” “I couldn’t know. And neither could my father,” she added.

Friday evening, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office told AFP that it had opened a preliminary investigation for "laundering of aggravated tax fraud", concerning "the facts revealed by Mediapart relating to Caroline and Jack Lang" and their supposed financial links with Epstein.

The AC anti-corruption association!! also announced to AFP that it had filed a complaint with the same prosecutor's office.

Concerning Caroline Lang, Maître Merlet explained that he also represented her. She will respond "loyally" to the justice's questions, he added: "Caroline is calm having received no funds, which the investigation will confirm".

A fourth term as president of the IMA

Among the documents published by the American authorities consulted by AFP are various exchanges shedding light on the relationship between the two men. Jack Lang “personally insisted that you come to his birthday,” wrote businessman Étienne Binant, patron of the IMA, to Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. “It’s for the inner circle only, he doesn’t make these kinds of invitations lightly.”

“Dear Jeffrey, (...) your generosity is infinite” Jack Lang himself reportedly wrote in 2017. “Can I still abuse it?” he asks before asking the billionaire to transport him by car to a party organized by the Aga Khan outside Paris.

In the political ranks, calls for the departure of Jack Lang continue to multiply, from Marine Tondelier, leader of the Ecologists, to the former socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, who was a minister in the same government as him, via Renaud Muselier, his predecessor at the head of the IMA and now president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.

The IMA is a private law foundation, created in 1980 and which Jack Lang has directed since 2013. He has since been reappointed, for a total of four mandates.

The former minister was proposed to this position by the French authorities, but it was the board of directors of the IMA, composed equally of ambassadors from Arab countries and personalities chosen by the Quai d'Orsay, which formally designated him and reappointed him as head.

With AFP

Keywords associated with the article

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.